


In the Meadow

by sc010f



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sc010f/pseuds/sc010f
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eileen Snape is desperate to heal her son, desperate enough to bring him to Luna Lovegood. Can Luna heal her former professor? Written for Annietalbot as part of the Snuna Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Meadow

The princess lived, not in a tower like in the stories the witch told him, but instead in a silver bottle with wheels at the end of the meadow in the shade of the spreading oak. Next to the tube was a sunny garden.

"She's growing potions ingredients," the witch told him. "She'll use those to heal you. And you'll be the prince you are."

He followed the witch up the winding path to the door of the curious home where the princess lived. The birds that lived in the spreading oak pecked around the dirt, looking for seeds and arguing with each other. The witch's broom followed him, bobbing along.   
The moment she opened the door, he decided that she _must_ be a princess. 

He'd never seen hair more lovely: the color of spun moonlight. 

"Miss Lovegood," the witch greeted her, "you remember my son, Severus."

"Come in, Severus," the princess said to him, holding out her hand.

Make sure you do a decent job," admonished the witch. 

"Wit beyond measure," replied the princess, helping him over the step. The witch harrumphed, lifted her hand as if to stop him, and turned on her heel, mounting her broom.

"She'll fly away, but don't be scared," he said to the princess, "she never falls off. The broom won't let her."

The princess smiled at him. 

"Would you like a cup of tea?" she asked.

* * *

_Journal of Luna Lovegood, Magical Naturalist, New Age Healer_

5 June 2000

Subject (how odd to call him "subject"; he was Professor Snape for so long) appears uninterested in magical stimuli.

Subject - I'll call him Severus, he responds to that.

Severus, then, also doesn't seem particularly attached to his mother. He referred to her as "the witch", telling me not to be frightened when Mrs Snape mounted her broom and left us yesterday. But he seems to feel neither hatred nor disgust for her, either. 

I should back up: Mrs Snape brought him to me this morning with the reminder that she would pay me well to heal him. I thought she was a bit rude to the Snargleforp that lives in the door, banging on it the way she did, but I didn't tell her so. I apologised to Louis later. 

Severus, meanwhile, stood in the middle of the campervan, staring at the ceiling.

"It's silver," he finally said. "I wondered if it would be, because it's silver on the outside."

"Nargle-lings like gold," I said. 

"Oh," he replied, finally turning to look at me. "What's a Nargle-ling?"

"We'll leave that for later," I replied. "Why don't we have tea, and you can tell me all about yourself."

The damage done to his mind is extensive. Mrs Snape intimated that the Healers in the Janus Thickey Ward at St Mungo's had been able to do very little for him.

He responded to his name, but claimed that "the witch" told him that was his name.

He remembered nothing of his life before . . . before waking up in Janus Thickey.

* * *

The princess made him a pallet in her home - she called it a campervan. He slept soundly on his bed, knowing she was on the other side of the funny, red painted door.

When he awoke, it wasn't to the thumping of the china cabinet in the witch's house but to the song of birds.

They called to him and in all eagerness, he threw back the covers and ran out of the bottle to play with them.

* * *

_5 June 2000_

I found Severus this morning in my garden, sitting cross-legged among the sweet corn seedlings, listening to the birds. 

"They're beautiful," he said, a wide smile spreading across his face. 

I have never seen my Potions professor like this. Scared, angry, haunted, all of those are emotions I have seen, but never joyful.

"What is beautiful?" I asked him.

"The birdsong. At the witch's house, they don't sing the same way."

"They always sing in my garden in the summertime, Severus."

"At the witch's house, it's never summer."

The Severus Snape that I knew when I was a student seemed to be gone. The Healers at St. Mungo's posited that prolonged stress, uncontrolled dispensing of memories, and exposure to Nagini's venom all led to his somewhat child-like state. 

I walked carefully towards him and laid my hand upon his shoulder.

"Do you like it here in the garden, Severus?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied, nodding vigorously. 

It was then that I saw the scars on his neck.

* * *

The princess let him sit in the garden and listen to her birds all morning and then brought him in for breakfast.

"Would you like to be outside today, Severus?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied, spooning up the last of his cereal. 

"Then come with me, and I will show you how to look after my garden."

Severus found he enjoyed tending the princess' garden: pulling up the plants she said were bad and watering the plants she said were good.

He would watch, fascinated, as she would take the stick she kept behind her ear, and with a gentle smile, make the dishes dance in the sink, or how she made light with a wave of her hand and the whisper of a word. 

And so the days passed and summer blossomed.

* * *

_15 June 2000_

Severus seems to have settled well into his new routine and has begun learning the names and properties of different herbs. He proves eager to learn and quick to retain new (to him) knowledge. My Muggle patients have also become accustomed to him and even seem pleased to see him as they come to me for various remedies. He has also accepted my use of magic quite mater-of-factly. 

"You're like the witch," he told me one day as we sat in the shade behind the campervan, dipping our toes into the brook. 

"In what way?" I asked him.

"The witch makes things move and light up with her hand and her - what did you call your stick?"

"I like to call him Jacob, because that's the name he told me he liked when I got him at Ollivander's. Mr Ollivander told me much later that he'd never heard of a wand having a name, but it was an excellent idea. But it was dark, and we were both afraid, so I think that perhaps he was trying to cheer me up." 

I found myself talking the way I had done when I was a child. Severus frowned in confusion and began to pluck at the grass beside him.

"But," I hurried on, "it's called a wand." I drew mine out and showed it to him.

"I thought you were a princess," he said. "And I think you still are."

"Thank you, Severus."

"I think that," he began. "I think that it's not only witches who have wands."

"No," I agreed. "It isn't."

"The witch said that I had a wand once, but it was broken."

"Yes, it was. Many people were unhappy about that."

"I feel that I'm not missing my wand. But it seems that there should be something _here_ ," he observed, waving his right hand. 

He lapsed into thoughtful silence after that and did not ask any more questions. 

Mrs Snape came by yesterday morning to inquire about his progress; she seemed displeased when I told her he was no closer to being the Severus Snape who had been the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

I assured her that there was still much work to be done and that we must be patient.

* * *

He liked living with the princess. She was kind to him and allowed him to work in her garden for as long as he wanted.

When he was tired, he would sit beneath the spreading oak behind her campervan and watch the silvery fish jump in the stream. 

The campervan was silver, and the meadow around it was gold. The princess was pure sunlight. 

He remembered that in the wintertime that had come before, the witch had told him stories of a dark prince who would rescue the princess from imprisonment. 

"You are the prince," the witch told him. 

"And the princess?" he had asked. "What is she like?"

"She was beautiful once," the witch answered, "but an evil enchanter put a spell on her, and now she appears old and ugly. But the prince will see through that and will rescue her and take her to a beautiful palace and care for her."

The princess here didn't need rescuing, and she was already beautiful.

He wondered if he loved her the same way he remembered loving the red-headed princess who had lived down the street when he was a boy. She had been beautiful, he remembered, and fierce. She had been his friend and sometimes came to visit him when he slept. But she always faded before he could discover her name.

The princess here said that love came in many forms. 

"I remember a red-haired princess," he said one afternoon, when they were sitting by the stream.

"What was she like?" she asked.

"She was like the bonfire we made last week," he said. "Red and orange and hot and bright."

The princess nodded, and her white-gold hair rippled in the dappled sunshine.

"But she doesn't stay," he said. "She fades away like the bonfire did." His brow furrowed. 

"You stay, though," he said, finally. "When I dream of you, you stay with me."

"Do you like it when I stay, Severus?"

"Yes," he said, nodding. "I get sometimes scared that the witch will come back and take me away to the place where there is no summer."

"She won't take you away if you don't want to go, Severus."

"Good. It smells funny in the witch's house. It smells like mildew and cats and something stinky that scares away moths. The witch says it's a potion."

The princess nodded.

"But I like staying with you - the witch says that since I'm a prince, I'm supposed to rescue a princess. But you are already free. And you don't live in a tower."

"I used to," she said. "Long ago, I lived with my father in a tower. And then when I was older, I lived in another tower; it was bigger, with more people. My father's tower was small - but I liked it better than the big tower I lived in when I was learning things in school."

"I never lived in a tower," he replied. "Can I still be a prince?"

"Princes don't have to live in towers," she said.

"Where do they live?" he asked.

"Anywhere they want to live. Some of them live in castles, like the one where I lived; others live in hovels in the middle of cities and don't know they're princes."

He was silent for a while, thinking about what the princess had said.

"I like it here; it's close to the earth, and I can feel the seedlings grow and smell the trees and hear the birds," he finally said, holding her hand.

"I'm glad, Severus," the princess replied, squeezing his hand back. "I like it that you're here, too."

* * *

_20 June 2000_

This afternoon I had another long conversation with Severus. This is becoming our routine.

His dreams still plague him, and it seems he dreams mostly of Harry's mum. I didn't ask him if he dreams of anything else, because I know he does. I can hear him cry out in the night and I go to him, holding his hand and wiping his sweat-soaked brow. 

Mrs Snape, when she had care of him, told him some very odd things. She did not say as much when she delivered him to me, or when she visited me, but she wants him to rescue her from her own life.

Her metaphors are not difficult to discern: a princess, captured by an evil man, cursed in to ugliness, saved by a prince. I remember when I lived in metaphor. But so many things have changed since then. 

I do not think that now is the time to tell her that Severus is beginning to regain some of his memories and thoughts. He is happier here than he was with her, and I don't believe it has been long enough for him. 

Can it be that I enjoy this version of Professor Snape? He is kind and thoughtful and innocent. I wonder if this was always what he was like, that when he was a boy, there was this side to him that listened to birdsong, dug in the dirt, and played with the half-wild rabbits that live in the hedgerow.

But he grew up in a city. There wouldn't have been half-wild rabbits that live in the hedgerow.

* * *

A few nights after he told the princess about the red-haired girl who had been a princess, a worse nightmare came to him, and he remembered it.

"There was a snake," he said, trembling in the princess' embrace. "It was huge and spiteful and would sit behind a throne."

"Shhh, Severus, it's gone," the princess soothed.

"And it would bite people, and it hated me - I don't know why, but it hated me for not being a real prince. I was only half-there."

"But you're not only half there," the princess whispered to him. "You're fully here, safe, with me."

"In the campervan?"

"Yes."

"And no snakes? No wicked wizards with nasty red eyes?"

"No."

"What about warlocks with long beards and strange sherbet lemons that make you compliant and sleepy?"

"No, none of those."

He relaxed. 

"That was the world before, wasn't it?" he asked. 

In the pale moonlight shining through the window by his bed, the princess nodded. 

"Yes," she said, "it was. It was a world we both lived in."

"There were castles there," he said, "and turrets, and everybody, not just the witch, rode on brooms."

"Yes."

"And I don't want to go back to it!" he wailed, and from within, deep within his very core, a strange feeling of power uncoiled itself, black tendrils unfurling and wrapping around his heart. "NO!" he cried, raising his hand, sending the princess toppling to the floor and shattering the teacups hanging over the sink.

"Severus!" cried the princess, scrambling from the floor.

"No," he cried, "I don't want to be this way."

"It's all right, Severus; you're all right."

"No, no, no," he whimpered, clinging to her. "I'm not a wizard; I can't go back to being that way!"

"Hush, darling, you won't," the princess soothed, gently rocking him back and forth.

And his sobs quieted. But he knew he would not sleep.

"Severus," the princess finally said.

"Yes?"

"Watch me." And she took the stick she carried behind her ear or in her lustrous hair and pointed it at a candle on the table.

" _Lumos_ ," she whispered. And the candle glowed with light. 

"You do those things, but it doesn't harm people?" he asked.

"Yes, you watch me do that every day."

"I know, but when I see it done in my dreams, and when I did it now, it hurts. It's cold, and it burns at the same time. And I was like that. Not a prince - a monster."

"You're a prince _and_ a wizard," the princess said, smiling in the golden glow.

"A prince?"

"Yes," she said, leaning down and kissing his forehead. "And I trust you. You use your magic to do what is right and good. Because you are a good prince, Severus."

"A prince," he repeated.

"Worthy and true."

At that moment, he fell in love with her.

* * *

_25 June 2000_

Following Severus' nightmare and demonstration of uncontrolled magic, we spent more time by the stream, talking. 

He has remembered more and more but has still managed to avoid the worst of what I think he suffered under Voldemort. Isn't it odd that I can still say his name without shuddering? Ron and Harry both sort of draw themselves up to speak it, and Hermione simply doesn't, anymore. Neither she nor Charlie ever seem to be around when we talk of those days. 

But if the Professor Snape that we all knew returns, what will happen to the Severus who has lived with me for these past few weeks? But I also believe that the Severus who sits beside me was always present in the feared Professor Snape.

I am drawn to the innocent man who sits at peace beside me. It is not the entirety of Severus Snape, but I wonder if Severus has ever truly been whole. I could love this man who cares for my vines and herbs, who knows instinctively how to brew the potions that my Muggle customers rely on. He is gentle - and I like to imagine him being gentle in the still of the night when Hogwarts slept around him. Harry said his Patronus was a doe. Harry said it was after his mum. But I wonder if instead, it's a more pure reflection of Severus himself. 

But he is not yet whole.

* * *

When the man with the scar on his forehead clumped up the path to the campervan, a summer storm was brewing in the distance. 

Severus rose from his knees in the middle of the aubergines and watched. Deep within, the cold, hard tendrils of hate and fear wound around his heart. Images sprung to his mind, unbidden.

"No," he whispered, "stay away from her." 

_I think we should gather what we can before the storm hits, don't you, Severus?_

The lanky man with the scar and messy black hair smiled briefly, shyly, at him before making his way to the door.

_The aubergines will be ready soon, and the fish are jumping in the stream._

"Luna!" The man called.

"Harry!" The princess replied, hugging the man tightly, "How nice to see you. Have you come for some lotions?"

_You're a prince and a wizard._

"No, I came to see how you were doing with, er, Snape."

_They'll arrest you if they know where you are. Who you are._

He never heard the princess'- no, Miss Lovegood's - response. His fists tightened, and he straightened. Thunder rumbled, closer than it had all day. 

What the hell was Potter doing here? Had he come to take him back to the Ministry? To truss him up like a pig, dragged back in triumph?

_Take it, take it. For fuck's sake, Potter, if nothing else saves you this will!_

"No," he rasped. He wouldn't leave her. She couldn't fend for herself here, not with the witch coming back. It was bad enough that Potter had taken everything from him; did he need to take this, as well?

_I regret it._

His mind exploded.

_Red eyes glowed in the darkness. Hissing, cackling. Dust on a hard floor._

Dimly he heard shouts from the campervan and the thudding of feet as Miss Lovegood, no, Luna, no, the princess, and Potter, that _toad_ , ran towards him.

_Phineas, shut up. I am doing what I can for these children. If the Carrows find out... the Lovegood girl, especially. You know what Alecto will do to her._

The darkness welled up within him. His arm, with the faint stains of the ugly mark that had haunted him, burned with a fire he could not bear. 

_Albus, I cannot do this._

Light exploded behind his eyes, and he fell to the ground, clawing at the dirt. 

A voice called out to him.

"Severus, drink, please," the princess begged.

_How can I disgust you; I've done everything you've asked, my Lord._

"No! No! No!" a voice begged. Belatedly, he realized it was his own.

"It is beginning," the princess said. 

"What?" Potter murmured. 

How could he hear them?

"He's remembering, Harry. He's remembering everything that happened, every part of   
his life that has been hiding from him."

_It is done, my Lord._

His mouth pressed into the dust, whispering, fingers scrabbling for a hold. 

_Snivellus! Look at 'im!_

The storm broke.

_Mudblood._

"We must get him inside," Luna murmured. 

_No, no, no, no, God, make it stop. I cannot live like this - I cannot bear to be without her. Not again, not like this. . ._

 

_15 August 2000_

The moment that Harry appeared on my doorstep was the moment when Severus' mind opened. Harry and I managed to get him into the campervan and calm him down. 

An hour later he was glaring at us both, fury in his eyes; I think that Harry's presence made it better and worse at the same time. Harry's eyes are green and I think Severus, well, he was Professor Snape here, had always hated Harry because he had his mother's eyes. Harry's mother's that is. Mrs Snape's eyes were brown and snapping. 

"What do you two children think you are doing here?" Severus demanded.

"Helping you," Harry said. "Luna took you in, to cure you, to bring you back to us!"

"Potter, I have no intention of coming back with you anywhere. Take you hands off me."

Harry was fidgeting with his clothing, trying to brush the dust off.

Outside the campervan, the rain poured down. 

Severus struggled to his feet. 

"Do you remember what happened, Severus?" I asked him.

He stared at me for a long moment. 

"You called me Severus," he said, "and you cared for me when I was indisposed."

Harry grasped his hand, and he growled.

"Harry," I said, "Perhaps you should give us some time."

"Luna," Harry protested, "it's _raining_ outside."

Severus glared some more, and Harry left - I think his feelings were hurt a bit, but Severus was angry; I could feel the fury radiating off him.

"Severus," I began.

"How much does he know?" he demanded.

"He knows you've been here."

"With a princess," he scoffed. 

"With me," I replied. "We've gardened and chased gnomes and planted aubergines, and searched for Nargles and . . ." 

"Miss Lovegood - Luna." He held up his hand. "Stop. I remember. All of it. And I appreciate what you have done for me. I would not have survived had it not been for you."

Harry poked his head in, dripping water on the floor. 

"I'll, er, be leaving now," he said, "I'll . . . erm . . . "

"Good-bye, Harry." I replied. "If you can contact Mrs Snape, I would appreciate it; Mrs Snape can be prickly, and I don't think she's very happy with me right now, because she's very protective of her son, and while she thought I could help him, she's not going to . . ."

"For Merlin's sake, Miss Lovegood," Professor Snape interrupted, "Potter may not have progressed beyond understanding the most basic of sentences, but he can comprehend your desire to have him leave." He stood. "I will contact my own mother."

Harry ducked out of the van. 

"It is raining," I said. "You'll get wet."

"A fact that escaped your notice with Potter?"

I was silent; for the first time in my life, I could not find a word to say. 

"I want you to stay," I said finally. 

A corner of his mouth quirked a bit. 

He rose, knuckles white as he grasped the edge of the table. 

"I will inform my mother of my recovery. I shall not return here."

"Why not, Severus?"

His glare softened, for a moment.

"You were the princess. But Miss Lovegood, you must understand, I was never, ever a prince." He turned again to leave, but I forestalled him. 

"Severus, wait!" I cried.

"What, Miss Lovegood?" He snapped, turning towards me. 

"I . . ." I paused. How do I tell him that he _is_ the prince I've been waiting for ever since I fled the castle, hoping to find peace and tranquility without snakes and torture and dungeons and magic that harms and maims and kills?

I gave up, took a step towards him, and pressed my lips to his.

"You will always have a place here, my prince," I whispered.

He paused, and for a moment, I saw the wizard he had been and the prince he had become, like two images superimposed, one upon the other. 

"Miss Lovegood, I . . ." He closed his mouth with a snap. It was as if words were failing him, and I'd only seen _that_ look once before. My stomach clenched as he spun on his heel, jerked the door open and splashed out into the rain. 

The door slammed behind him. 

"Potter! Bugger off!" I heard him shout angrily.

I was alone in the campervan. I sighed and waved my wand at the tea things that tinkled merrily as the kettle began to whistle.

Harry banged into the campervan and sat glumly at the table.

"I'm sorry, Luna," he said. "I wanted to help."

"I will miss him," I said. Harry might be able to understand missing loved ones, but I wondered if he knew was it was like to miss somebody he'd fallen in love with. Harry leaned across the table and patted my hand, and I knew he didn't understand at all. But the oak tree outside did. 

And as the branches of the tree scraped the top of the campervan, I knew that Severus would come back.

* * *

The campervan sat in a shady corner of the meadow, tucked beneath a spreading oak. Little had changed, the dark man noticed. Indeed, it had been a year since he had first trod this path. 

He scowled. The birds' infernal racket seemed disconcerting to him - like the elusive strains of a song half remembered, or a dream desperately clung to on the edge of waking.

From the sunny spot beside the campervan rose a woman, clad in deep red, fair hair swirling about her. 

"You look like a princess in disguise," he called to her before he could stop himself. 

Her smile made the very leaves on the trees greener and the sunshine brighter.

"Hello, Severus," she said. "I've been hoping for you."

"Luna, I . . ." he began, trailing off for lack of words.

"I am glad you returned."

"You belong in a palace," he said, reaching out for her hand, "not soiling yourself with manure and dirt and potions ingredients."

She laughed, silver bells accompanying the birdsong.

"And where do _you_ belong, Severus?" she asked.

"As close to you as you'll allow," he replied.

"Then come as close as you need to," she said, gathering him into her arms.

"I still don't remember everything," he cautioned her.

"It doesn't matter," she said, lips against his throat. "It matters only that you are here with me."

When she kissed him, the sunshine, the meadow, the birdsong, the drone of the grasshoppers faded away. 

Several moments (or was it years) later, she drew back and said, "it may not be a palace, but you are welcome to share it with me."

And she led him into the campervan in the shade of the spreading oak at the corner of the meadow.

* * *

AN: Thanks and praise to Camillo for the Brit-pick and Subversa for the beta and Bluestocking79 for the "hey, why don't you do this?".


End file.
